Russia is now visually confirmed to have lost 75 Tanks in December so far, which is more than any month in 2023 except February and October. Here is a short thread of how that breaks down, data. table at the end. 1/n
This graph is the same data as the first but with a 3-month smoothing. T-72s and T-80s between them remain the main types of tank. T-90, T-64, T-62, and T-55 are all small numbers in comparison. it looked like the T-80 was growing in comparison to the T-72 for the first 16 months of the war, before maxing out at 51% and then declining, December has seen a rise in the % of T-80s, not clear if this is 'monthly variation' or a new trend. 2/n
Looking in detail at the T-90, I have 2 graphs because the numbers are so low that a 3 month Bar chat is better to see the change. there has been an almost complete change from T-90As to T-90Ms, suggesting that the T-90As have either all been destroyed or withdrawn to be upgraded to T-90Ms. There was a brief appearance of T-90S but that's gone now. the T-90S is the 'export only' variant, these tanks were probably the ones meant for India and used because of an extreme shortage of tanks at that time.
The T-80s have also seen a change in variant from mostly T-80U to T-80BV, with some T-80BVMs thought out. The T-80BVM is an ongoing upgrade from the T-80BV and was running at about 40 a year before the war. The T-80B is an older model and was thought to have all been upgraded to BV variants, That must be incorrect because we have now seen 3 destroyed, this suggests to me that they are near the back of reparable T-80s to me.
With 12 variants of T-72 I have both simplified and full charts, at first glance they don't seem to be showing a pattern, other than a new rise in unidentified T-72 which is why I created a new chart, in the next tweet.
There are 2 separate modules of Orb 2022, T-72B Orb 2022 and T-72 B3 Orb 2022. there are also a lot of 'unidentified but definitely an Obr 2022 modal. And it seems that Russia is rapidly converting its T-72B and B3s to this standard. It is worth noting that they are not as sophisticated as a T-72B3 Orb 2016.
All of my data comes from here are the data tables, I use to make the graphs. Thred end. WarSpotting.net
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1) Russian Artillery losses have changed, for most of the war, there have been far more SPGs than Towed artillery, that started to change earlier this year and now its about 2/3 Towed guns.
2) Also the calibers of the lost Russian artillery has also changed, at the start about 2/3 of the losses were the standard 152mm guns Dark Blue). that has steadily decreased, and now represent just 11% of the total, mostly displaced by 122mm.
3) I don't know why the change is being observed. Visually observed Losses are not necessarily an exact reflection of what is being used. However, in absence of other methods/modales I'm putting this out in graph form, as it may be the best proxy we have, so long as we understand its limitations.
1) There has been a notable increase of Russian T-54/55 destroyed recently as a share of total Russian Tank losses as recorded by @WarSpotting while still modist, only 4 tanks, it's still a noteworthy increase, a short 🧵
2) There have been 88 total Russian tank losses over 3 months, but of these a quarter 22 have been of Unknown Type. Therefor, of the 66 lost tanks of Known types, the 4 T-54/55s represent 6% A small share, but not negligible, as they have been up to now.
3) All 4 of the losses have been Geo located, 2 of them are in Donetsk Oblast, one in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, and I think the most recent 'Sudxha raion' is in Russia, if i'm not mistaken. It's possible that its one Russian unit that's been moved about, But I don't think so.
1) More Russian IFV/APC losses added in the last 24 hours (16) to @WarSpotting than happened all of September combined. (14)
2) I don't have any inside knowledge of Russian tactics, and 'loss analysis' always has limitations, so recognising those limitations, I'm not going to say why this is. But those that are suggesting that Russia might have stopped supporting small assaults with IFVs and instead are now doing small numbers of larger assaults, might be right.
3) One interesting thing is that of the 25 IFV/APC losses over half 13 are MT-LBs, mostly used as a rather simple APC.
Use of MT-LBs are a proportion of total losses has been increasing, Over 40% in sep (midpoint of 3 month average) again I don't know why, but interesting.
1) A 🧵on Russian tank losses. In September russian losses returned to a more normal distribution, T-80s and T-72 each make up about 1/3 of losses, most of the rest are T-62s, and T-90s stay in the 5-10% range.
2) T-90 losses are now exclusively T-90Ms, only 2 T-90As have been lost this year, the last in April. This reinforces my long held assumption that Russia has been upgrading there T-90As to T-90Ms, And probably means they are now few if any T-90As left, new T-90M production is probably back to 60-80 a year.
3) T-80 losses have not shown any big recent change, but Unmodernised T-80BV (Dark Blue) continue to become less common, and ether T-80BVM Orb 2022 or Orb 2022s of unknown (BV or BVM) modle, (yellow and light blue) together now make up over half the total.
1) Russian tank loss update, while most of our attention is on the stunning Ukraine offensive against Russia Oil refining; Russia continues to lose tank. Russia is still losing a lot of very old T-62 Tanks, but the proportion is down over the last 2 months.
2) this striking chart is perhaps the big news from this months Russi losses, it shows the ratio of Tanks to IFVs, we have gone form 2-3 IFV/APCs for each tank lost to less than half an IFV/APC to each tank lost.
3) That's because the number of IFV/APC losses, (yellow) has dropped dramatically. Transport losses however are up, and most others are about normal for this point in the month.
1) Dramatic change in the make up of Russia losses this month. A big drop in the proportion (and absotte numbers) of IFV/APC losses (Light Blue) and rise in the proportion of Truck losses (light yellow near top) also some increase in tank proportion (dark yellow at bottom)
2) Here in table format, only 6 IFV/APCs (yellow) but 37 transport (orange).
I dont know whats driving this change, but I think it's too large to be random. my first thought/theory is that it might be related to the 'point' system that Ukrainian Drone forces operate under.
3) Here is a graph format, comparing tank to IFV/APC visually confirmed losses you can see the full and dramatic change. This graph is 'mid point of 3 month average' except September 25.
Normally there are 2-3 IFV/APCs for every tank lost, now it's the other way around.